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In order to encourage summer reading, I make a summer reading plan and share it with my students. I then encourage them to do the same. My summer reading plan isn’t set in stone- I make a list of books I want to read over the summer. The list is usually very long and I start adding books during the winter, when I am overwhelmed by the number of titles I want to read. I may read all of the books on the list or I may only read a few over the few months that I am not in school. The idea is, it gives me a starting point for my reading so I don’t waste time staring at my all-too-overflowing shelves.

Sharing my summer reading plan also helps my students because it gives them ideas for their own lists. I fully admit that I am maybe too connected to the world of children’s lit (What? You can’t rattle off release dates from memory?). I know for a fact that I am more connected than many of my students. For many of them, they may have read a book or an author a few years ago and then lost track. At one time they knew they wanted to read the next book in the series or another book by that author, but then life got in the way. By sharing my plan, I hope to jog their memory so that they can add the newest Rick Riordan, or Ellen Hopkins, or Lois Lowry book to their own summer reading plans.

This year I think I will try sharing my summer reading plan digitally. I have a class Facebook page that many students in my school follow, plus a few alumni. Every week I post #fridayreads and students share what they are reading at that moment. I think that by sharing my summer reading plan on the Facebook page, I can conserve some of that hard-to-come-by teaching time during the last week of school while giving my students a way to access my summer reading plan all summer long. Plus, the comment feature on the Facebook page will allow the students to share their own plans, which is fabulous. Social reading is so important and I love when students get ideas from each other!

I’ve already started my summer reading plan for this year. I won’t share the entire(-ly too long) list here, but I will share a few books that I am really looking forward to reading:

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Michael Vey: Prisoner of Cell 25
Bumped
Cinder
Insurgent
Choice Words
Wonderstruck
The Mighty Miss Malone
Alexander Hamilton: the Outsider
Heart of a Samurai
Between
Small as an Elephant
The Fault in Our Stars

My last day of work is FRIDAY!!! I can’t wait to get started on this list!